Yen-Ju Chen
Professor: Hui-Shan Lin
Optimality Theory
29 May 2009
Reduplication in Optimality Theory: A Case of Hakka Reduplication
Chapter One
Introduction
This paper explores the possibility of adequately representing the relationship
between morphology and phonology in Optimality Theory. We know that there are rules
sensitive to morphological properties, phonological properties independently. And there
are also some rules particular to morphological-phonological interface. Of course we
know that these rules are explanations based on the central claim of rule-based phonology.
In this paper, we adopt the claim of Optimality Theory that phonological outputs are
generated not from rules, but from an interaction of different constraints. The actual
phonological output is the one that is optimal with respect to the ranking of different
constraints in particular language. According to this claim, we go on to consider a
possibility to change the rules we refer to in the front into different constraints in a view
of Optimality theory. Not only the rules sensitive to phonological rules, but also rules
sensitive to morphological rules, we would love to see them adequately represented in the
framework of Optimality Theory. We consider that since morphological rules are related
to some actual phonological outputs, we could not leave them behind. But since these
outputs are associated with some kind of morphological properties, it would be
inadequate if we analyze them only in a phonological perspective.
And Optimality Theory is a theory with many insightful views in phonological field.
Its way to use different constraints is a step to reach universal phonological properties.
Although different languages contain different sets of constraints, but constraints are
universal, in other words, there is no constraint can be used in only one particular
language. And any constraint can be considered as a reflection of one universal
phonological property regulating phonological output, as either faithfulness constraint or
markedness constraint. Faithfulness and markedness constraint competes with each other,
and in one phonological output, only one constraint wins out. The outcome is the winner
constraint has more impact on phonological output, the other has less impact. The
outcome is an interaction of faithfulness constraint and markedness constraint and its
ranking. And it should be noted that it is without exception in that we cannot find that in a
situation the outcome, or any phonological output, is made by any constraint that is not
defined by faithfulness constraint and markedness constraint. No matter different
constraints are formed, they underlies faithfulness constraint or markedness constraint.
And this analysis in Optimality theory provides strong explanatory power to wide range
of different phonological phenomena. And we expect that this analysis can also combine
morphological properties, like rules sensitive to morphological properties mentioned in
the front. We assume that morphological motivated phonological output is also governed
by faithfulness constraint or markedness constraint. And this is the point we would
examine in this paper. Or we need additional force in order to satisfy our need, which is
an idea we also have to consider.
The issue of morphology and phonology interaction has attracted much attention
from phonologists. The theory called Prosodic Morphology is a theory concerning this
issue (see McCarthy and Prince 1999). And later Generalized Template Theory is
proposed with a goal to reach more explanatory adequacy. The concern about reaching
more explanatory adequacy is worth noting in that it eliminates the templatic categories.
The constraint like “ Minimal word” with a regard to template or morphological structure
is abandoned in Generalized Template Theory, instead using no specific constraint
governing templatic structure and different constraints relating to different positions in a
template and the ranking between these constraints also make the template structure
explicit. For example, we can use alignment constraint to have segments in particular
position. And the constraint like this also corresponds to the structure of foot level and
also other structure, like prosodic structure. And it should also be noted that the operation
of constraint is on the process of parsing and mapping. In this case, the morphological
form can be retained in the parsing by faithfulness constraint or will be changed in the
parsing due to the markedness constraint a particular language have. This is also a
practice of faithfulness and markedness constraint. But this leaves a question that is since
the parsing is a process selecting optimal phonological output; it does not have any
connection with morphological properties. And if we consider the markedness constraint
happening after a morphological output, and it does not have the ability to discern
morphological properties, the morphological properties or morphological contrast will be
lost in an effect of markedness constraint. And the output will not show morphological
properties once have, that is some morphological contrasts will be lost. But this is not the
case, the morphological process will be shown clearly in the phonological output, for
example the reduplicated form and suffixation, if the output marks no clear
morphological process, we will no longer to distinguish a contrast and have different
usages. So in this paper we start with morphological theory, considering its
morphological motivation. And its motivation cannot be reduced in the process of
constraint operation and how this motivation retained in the framework of Optimality
Theory.
We narrow our scope to reduplication. And we focus our investigation to Hakka
reduplication. In this study, we hope that we will find the way morphological motivation
can be settled down adequately in Optimality theory. We assumed that this is also a
situation of Faithfulness and Markedness interaction. But we also do not exclude other
possibilities.
Chapter Two
Literature Review
In this chapter, we first start with the review of morphological theory. Morphology
theory offers us with the explanation of the nature of reduplication. It would be beneficial
for us to know the underlying motivation of reduplication. And the motivation, in our
consideration, has to interact with phonological rules, and then it leads to the output. In
OT’s view, we come up with a standard view to explain this process. That is we can say
that the morphological motivation is governed by faithfulness constraint. And these
motivations have to compete with markedness constraint. Markedness constraint involves
any specific phonological requirement in this language. Then in most cases markedness
constraint will be ranked above the faithfulness constraint. However, in reality, this view
poses some problems. This simplified view seems not to account for all the facts because
the situations in different languages are complex. In the literature, there are different
constraint rankings in different situations. This is the most interesting part of this study,
and we are eager to propose a plausible explanation to account for this. We start with the
morphological consideration in view of reduplication.
2.1
Aronoff and Fudeman’s work
In Aronoff anf Fudeman’s work, they point out that morphemes are often defined
as the smallest linguistic pieces with grammatical functions, and a morpheme may consist
of a word, or a meaningful piece of a word. Another way to define morphemes is to say
that morphemes are pairings between sound and meaning. In our view, the second
definition is to phonologist’s concern. In phonology, the assumption is that there is a
linking process between these sounds. But it’s not clear that phonology involves a
consideration of the pairing between sound and meaning. It may be natural to say that
phonology is all about the consideration of the sounds interaction in a word. In
Mccarthy’s (1982) work, the linking of the sounds is toward a template consisting of
consonant and vowel. This arrangement is plausible in that it captures the universal
characteristic- consonant and vowel form a syllable. The sounds combination is based on
a consideration to combine with a vowel and a consonant. But there is a problem that is
the original linkage between sound and meaning is broken if we consider a linkage only
to CV template. That is we have no specification to affixation and base form. In OT’s
view, the form with affixation and base form are all considered as input. And it goes
through constraint competition and form an output. There are different outputs between
the affixated form and base form. We argue here is that is this plausible for us to say that
the similarity between the two outputs indicates the two forms are related. Only through
the competition of constraint, then we can find that the similarity of the two forms. In this
way, the indication of grammatical function or meaning happens after the competition of
constraints and we have to say that the relevant constraint rankings ensure the indication
of grammatical function or meaning. In some cases, this idea seems reasonable. For
example, the allomorph of English morpheme-‘a’ is ‘an’, and this allomorph is
conditioned by its environment to be assimilated. In this stance, we can say the
occurrence of ‘a’ or ‘an’ is conditioned by the constraint ranking. The occurrence of ‘an’
can be regarded as the outcome of the dominance of markedness constraint. However, if
we also consider the occurrence of the ‘a’, there is a problem we have to consider. The
problem is that how can we get ‘a’ from the relevant constraint ranking instead of other
sounds? If we adopt the view above that the indication of grammatical from or meaning,
maybe the way to combine indication of meaning is absurd, we consider only the
indication of grammatical function, then it is the constraint ranking that derives the
output ’a’. Therefore, we can consider also another possibility. If we consider ‘a’ is
actually specified in the input, then we don’t have to counter this difficulty. In other
words, in the input section, there are not only sounds. Instead, there is also a separation of
base form and grammatical function form. The settlement here breaks the assumption
above that the paring between sounds is only recognized in the phonology. In OT’s
literature, we find that the input of reduplication is specified as the RED part and the base
form part. However, this is the central idea of Correspondence Theory. The RED part is
derived through the constraint ranking copying from the base. But is there the same
situation if we consider the ‘a’ morpheme. The problem is that how can we use the
relevant constraint ranking to guarantee the derivation of ‘a’? The ‘a’ is believed not to be
an instance of reduplication. We cannot copy one sound from the base form then get the
‘a’ morpheme. The ‘a’ morpheme seems to us is abstract, we cannot say that it is derived
through constraint ranking. We have to the possibility that ‘a’ is identified as a marker in
the input already then along with the base form to have the constraint ranking. Then the
‘a’ remains faithful in the output. Is this proposal plausible?
The proposal part we will discuss in the later paragraph. Now, we return to the
Aronoff and Fudeman’s work and see more of morphological consideration of
reduplication. In Aronoff and Fudeman’s work, they hold that morphology is distinct
component in the grammar. The morphology specification cannot be simply accounted
for by phonological rules. This view also draws our concern. In our view, when we face
the problem like the ‘a’ morpheme, we come up with another idea. We imagine that is
there a possibility that ‘a’ morpheme has to be intact in the process of input-output
derivation. We consider that it would be reasonable if we consider the morphological
motivation of ‘a’ morpheme. The morphological motivation is for ‘a’ to specify the
grammatical function. In order to specify the grammatical function, it needs the
incorporation of phonological constraint to make the morpheme intact, untouchable. If it
undergoes some change due to the influence of markedness constraint, the function to
indicate grammatical function is deprived. This is our prime idea. We know that the
relevant discussions may be in the literature of OT, and there are also some perfect
solutions. We will find the relevant literature to reach further explanation. There are also
some morphological motivations that draw our attention, but we will not discuss all these
here. We here posit our findings form the literature we find about the discussion of
various languages. Reduplication can be regarded as an independent process in some
languages, and it can also be taken as affixation in some languages. Actually, in Aronoff
and Fudeman’s work, there is no need to make a clear distinction of the replication form.
In the concern of morphology, there are only affixation and derivation. The difference
between them is one to specify meaning, and one to specify the grammatical function. As
for reduplication, it can be taken as either of one kind, depending on the context it is used
to specify meaning or function. We find that the reasons to take reduplication as
affixation or not in different languages are vary. We do not go on explicate here. But is
we adopt the view of morphology, and then there is no need to specify reduplication.
According to this view, in the OT’s analysis, the specification of RED in input is actually
out of phonological consideration. The specification is actually a linkage of different
sound combination between the base form and reduplicated form.
2.2
Alderete et al. ‘s work
In Alderete et al ‘s work, we find that reduplicated morpheme in some cases is
invariant and not through copying. This finding appeals to us in that reduplication does
not result from base form regularly. In the most stances, we have to construct the relation
of reduplicated form and the base form, and we convince that the reduplicated form is the
reflex of base form. The idea used in Alderete et al. ‘s work is a notion called Emergence
of the Unmarked. In our concern, Emergence of the Unmarked explains more than
reduplication. Emergence of Unmarked can be used to explain the relationship between
the meaning and function pairing. If we consider the ‘a’ morpheme example, Emergence
of the Unmarked can help us to explain the derivation of ‘a’ in the constraint ranking. The
‘a’ morpheme actually consists of one sound- schwa. We consider the situation can be
explained by the constraint ranking. But we do not go on this discussion here. If
reduplication is actually a follow of Emergence of the Unmarked, we have to consider the
possibility of using the TETU in most cases. However, in this way, the morphological
motivation seems not to be in focus and further erased.
2.3
Tseng’s work
Tseng’s work is a discussion of Hakka reduplication. We use this study as an
example to further discover the relationship of the morphology and phonology. We
consider how to adopt the morphological motivation into the constraint ranking.
Tseng’s work is also an analysis of Hakka reduplication, and with reasonable constraint
ranking in the framework of Optimality Theory. We first consider the morphological
relationship in Hakka reduplication and consider the possibility to add additional
component into Tseng’s work. If there is anything we can add into Tseng’s analysis, we
examine the morphological consideration in Tseng’s analysis. We first introduce Tseng’s
description of the reduplication in the analysis. Tseng’s paper discusses the grammatical
operation in Hakka in which a verb is followed by a complement clause heading by a
morpheme do, the verb must be reduplicated. For example: (the examples are extracted
from Tseng’s work)
(1) Gi sii
He eat
shui-go [do
dong
fruit
really fast
Comp
kiak].
Reduplicated form:
(2) Gi
He
sii
eat
shui-go sii
fruit
eat
[do
dong
kiak].
Comp
really fast
‘He ate fruit really fast’
This syntactic operation of verb copying is obligatory in Hakka. And the position
of this kind of verb reduplication is rigid. For example :( the data here is also extracted
from Tseng’s study)
(3) * Gi sii sii [do dong kiak] .
This finding draws our attention in that this process is out of a consideration of
morphological requirement or phonological requirement. In Tseng’s analysis, the reason
is attributed to Obligatory Contour Principle. In that, the reason Tseng conclude will be a
phonological motivation. We first look at Tseng’s relevant constraint ranking and propose
our thoughts. Tseng’s constraints are listed as following:
(4) ABUT (do L, WORD R): attaching the left edge of do to the right edge of the right
edge of its preceding word.
ABUT (do L, PRED R): attaching the left edge of do to the right edge of main
predicate.
Uniformity: disallowing the many-to –one correspondences between syntactic nodes
and phonological word (i.e. against fusion)
Tseng’s ranking is listed as following:
gi zeu [ngip vuk]
[do
dong gip]
he run PREP house COMP really hurried
‘He ran into house hurriedly’
ABUT
ABUT
(WORD) (PRED)
a. Gi zeu [ngip vuk ]=do dong gip
b. Gi zeu=do
[ngip vuk] dong gip
c. Gi zeu [ngip vuk] zeu=do dong gip
*!
*!
Uniform
*
*
*
In Tseng’s analysis, Tseng does not depict clearly the occurrence of the
reduplicated form. Alternatively, Tseng consider the position of the grammatical
morpheme-do and use the relevant position of morpheme-do to influence the
representation. In this way, the reduplicated verb occurs by satisfying the position
requirement of morpheme-do. Tseng’s analysis here involves the morpheme-do’s
distinction of word and predicate. In fact, Tseng’s analysis is based on the syntactic view.
We do not deny the possibility of a morpheme to recognize some syntactic property, as
Lin (1994) describe in the study. But actually according to the generalized templatic
constraint, the constraint specified for a certain linguistic unit is not suggested. Moreover,
in terms of OCP principle, we consider the principle is mainly used in the avoidance of
the combination of certain sounds. We do not see a high potential for the avoidance of the
base form and the reduplicated form. We consider the position of the grammatical
morpheme-do can be explained by the faithfulness constraint. As for the reduplicated
form and the position, we propose the following constraint ranking:
gi zeu [ngip vuk]
dong gip]
[do
Parse-prosodic Iden-IO(position) Max-IO
word
he run PREP house COMP
really hurried
‘He ran into house hurriedly’
c. Gi zeu [ngip vuk ]=do dong
gip
d. Gi zeu=do [ngip vuk] dong
gip
*!
*
c. Gi zeu [ngip vuk] zeu=do
dong gip
*
According to this, we can get the correct surface form. We can say that the
Parse-prosodic constraint is the motivation of the occurrence of the reduplicated form.
This is the markedness constraint in Hakka have to follow. The complement without a
verb when preceding a verb and complement cannot be a prosodic word. This constraint
outranks the faithfulness constraint and leads to the output.
Chapter Three
Conclusion
3.1
conclusions
In this study, we focus on the relationship of morphology and phonology. We
consider possibilities to deal with the relationship in the OT framework nicely.
However, we do not find the unified account in this study. We concentrate the
reduplication of Hakka and observe the process of the relationship to achieve in the
OT’s framework. We hope that this will increase the insights of the interface of
morphology and phonology.
Chapter Four
Reference
Alderete, John, Beckman, Jill, Benua, Laura, Gnanadesikan, Amalia, Mccarhty,
John, Urbanczyk. 1999. Reduplication with fixed segmentism.
Linguistic Inquiry 30. 327-364.
Aronoff, Mark, and Fudeman, Kristen. 2005. What is morphology. Oxford.
Blakewell.
Tseng Yu-Ching. 2008. An OT analysis on verb reduplication in Hakka. Concertric:
Studies in Linguistics 34. 53-80.